From woodchips to ethanol

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DENVER - Donning a hard hat, smock and goggles, Bud Klepper walked the grounds of Range Fuels' thermo-chemical conversion plant.

"You're looking at the very first plant of this type in the world, you'll see more of this," said Klepper.

Klepper is the chief technical specialist for the company. He developed the technology that takes woodchips and beetle kill and turns them into cellulosic ethanol. You most likely have heard of corn-based ethanol and Klepper says there is no difference between the two.

"If you were to go to your favorite liquor store and buy a bottle of Everclear alcohol which is 99.9 percent clear chemically, it would be indistinguishable from our ethanol. It's no different from corn-based ethanol," said Klepper.

Through a process of super heating and then cooling, the woodchips are transformed into the liquid additive that enables gas in cars to burn more efficiently and cleanly. Klepper says the woodchip-based approach is quicker.

"It usually takes about five days to turn corn into ethanol. Here, it will take about 20 minutes for us to take those woodchips and turn them into ethanol," Klepper said.

Klepper says the process is also cheaper than its corn based counterpart, although he wouldn't specify by how much. The activity at Range Fuels has caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy.

"We feel this is the wave of the future. As a country, we're going to have to move in this direction in alternative renewable fuel," said John Scahill, an engineer with the Department of Energy.

Scahill pointed to this past summer of skyrocketing fuel prices as an example of what can happen when a dependence on foreign oil can get of control. In addition to its cost-effectiveness and speed of production, Scahill says unlike corn-base ethanol, an injection of cellulosic ethanol or other biomass-based production of ethanol has rosier implications for the dinner table.

"Using woodchips won't affect the cost of your beef or your chicken, or your tortillas," Scahill said.

The Department of Energy has confidence in Range Fuels' potential, so much so it has invested $76 million into the company's endeavors.

"The impetus now is to move this technology out of the labs and get into the commercial arena," Scahill said.

Range Fuels expects to begin production from the first phase of its commercial cellulosic ethanol plant located near Soperton, Georgia in 2010. The plant is permitted to produce over 100 million gallons of ethanol and methanol once construction on all phases is complete.

The kind of work the company is engaged in may expand if President-elect Barack Obama makes good on his campaign promises of making the "New Energy Economy" a pivotal part of the country's economy and job growth.

This may mean more federal funding for projects at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden and may position Colorado firmly in the position of being a pivotal player in the nation's economic revival for quite some time. Keep in mind, President-elect Obama made it one of his campaign goals to "get off foreign oil in 10 years."